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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 5 January 2015

OS X NTP Security Update (Yosemite, Mavericks, and Mountain Lion) -- Apple has released OS X NTP Security Update for 10.10 Yosemite, 10.9 Mavericks, and 10.8 Mountain Lion to address a critical security issue with the software that provides the Network Time Protocol (NTP) service, which is used to keep a computer’s internal clock synchronized with an external server. The updates are available via Software Update or via Apple’s Support Downloads Web site, but for the first time ever, Apple pushed this security update to at least some Macs automatically. For those still using 10.6 Snow Leopard, there’s an independent installer. (All updates are free. For 10.10.1 Yosemite, 1.9 MB; for 10.9.5 Mavericks, 2.0 MB; for 10.8.5 Mountain Lion, 2.1 MB)

BBEdit 11.0.2 -- Bare Bones Software has released BBEdit 11.0.2 with a bevy of fixes for the venerable text editor. As usual, the folks at Bare Bones have had some fun with the release notes, with these two standout items:

Fixed a bug in the Markdown scanner where it would hang if you inserted a tab before a blockquote marker, but only if you’d had three or more cups of coffee at a small diner within the last week.

The user manual is now downloaded using https, and the world is once again safe for democracy.

On the more serious side, BBEdit 11.0.2 works around a frustrating bug in OS X 10.10 Yosemite that causes Open and Save As panels in some applications to grow by 22 pixels each time a file is saved, pushing the bottom edge of the panels off the screen (a problem also recently addressed in “Default Folder X 4.6.12,” 14 December 2014). This fix only prevents the panels from growing out of control, and the release notes provide a Terminal command for restoring the panels to their default sizes. BBEdit 11.0.2 also fixes a memory leak in some of the built-in language modules, improves typing into the search box in the
Clippings floater or the Insert Clipping panel, restores the Change Case > Capitalize Sentences command to working order, and improves performance of the Process Lines Containing, Process Duplicate Lines, Sort Lines, and Zap Gremlins commands. ($49.99, free update for version 11 licenses, 11.2 MB, 10.8.5+)

Paprika 2.1.2 -- Hindsight Labs has released Paprika 2.1.2 with several fixes for the popular recipe manager, as well as the addition of a few new unspecified keyboard shortcuts. The update ensures scroll bars don’t go missing in the recipe screen, improves text selection when using the browser clipboard tools, returns missing buttons in full screen mode in OS X 10.10 Yosemite, squashes a bug where popovers would get stuck in the browser, and fixes a few minor issues with the YummySoup and SousChef importers. ($19.99 new from the Mac App
Store, free update, 4.2 MB, 10.8+)

Airfoil 4.8.12 -- Rogue Amoeba has released Airfoil 4.8.12, which adds a couple workarounds for issues involving the Bonjour network discovery service. Airfoil will no longer disconnect a speaker if its Bonjour record disappears, and the app no longer has a timeout for resolving Bonjour services. The update also squashes an AppleScript bug where multiple Airfoil Speakers Touch instances were not properly uniquely identified, fixes a crash that was introduced in version 4.8.11, and updates Instant On to version 8.0.5 with several small improvements. ($25 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 15.1 MB, release notes, 10.7+)

Quicken 2015 for Mac 2.3.1 -- Intuit has released version 2.3.1 of its Quicken 2015 for Mac financial software with several new features, including a calendar view of transactions (both past transactions and future reminders), new reports (including Net Worth Over Time Report and Payee Summary Report), and display of alerts from the Quicken mobile app (in Quicken for Mac as well as in Notification Center). See “Quicken 2015: Close, But Not Yet Acceptable” (2 October 2014) for our initial coverage. The update also improves management of the payee list, adds an option for turning off
security price updates, warns you when an attachment can’t be uploaded (while continuing to sync to the cloud), improves matching of downloaded transactions, fixes a bug that prevented a newly entered transaction from being automatically sorted by date, and continues to improve Quicken Windows file conversion. Note that as of this writing, Quicken 2015 for Mac was still stuck at version 2.2 in the Mac App Store. ($74.99 new, free update, release notes, 10.7+)

Evernote 6.0.5 -- Evernote has released version 6.0.5 of its eponymous information management app with a fix for an issue that prevented content from either not displaying or taking far too long to render. The update also ensures typing speed doesn’t slow down (which occurred for users with multiple accounts), adds the capability to link Gmail contacts in Work Chat, adds support for exporting a presentation as a PDF, and returns the capability to open local files directly (previously excised due to security concerns). (Free from Evernote or the Mac App Store, 60.0 MB, release notes, 10.7.5+)

GraphicConverter 9.5 -- Lemkesoft has released GraphicConverter 9.5 with the twin additions of creating QR codes as well as finding QR codes (the latter on OS X 10.10 Yosemite). The venerable graphic conversion and editing utility also adds support for import importing MTF (Motorola Theme File) and APNG files, an Automatic Enhancement command to the Picture menu, a Close All Saved Documents command, a sort option when browsing your iCloud Photo Stream, a new crosshair tool, and a smart crop AppleScript command. ($39.95 new from Lemkesoft or the Mac App Store, free update, 248 MB, release notes, 10.7+)

Mellel 3.3.7 -- RedleX has released Mellel 3.3.7, a maintenance release with patches for a few memory leaks. The word processing app also fixes an issue that would cause bibliography scanning to fail with documents containing oddly formatted XML data, fixes a couple instances of crashes, squashes a bug that prevented text from being copied when viewing a document in the Versions browser, and corrects the Copy X Attributes menu in the Spanish localization. ($39 new from RedleX and the Mac App Store, free update, 97.5 MB, release notes, 10.6+)

Typinator 6.3.1 -- Ergonis released Typinator 6.3 in December 2014 with the new capability to search through your most recent expansions (via the Find field in both the Typinator window and in Quick Search). The text expansion tool can now export a set of selected items dragged from the abbreviation list to the Finder (previously, only an entire set could be exported), improves overall speed, works around an issue that caused expansions to fail in OS X 10.10 Yosemite’s Notification Center, and now requires 10.6 Snow Leopard or later. Shortly after the release of version 6.3, Ergonis issued version 6.3.1 to fix an
issue with the visibility of the Typinator icon in Yosemite’s dark menu and work around a crash on Yosemite. (€24.99 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, 6.9 MB, release notes, 10.6.8+)

Pixelmator 3.3.1 -- The Pixelmator Team has released version 3.3.1 of its eponymous image editing app (no nickname for this release this time) with the added capability to pinch to zoom within a document window. The update also now enables you to scroll through the Shapes, Gradients, and Styles palettes, ensures you can properly see the document window bottom side, correctly displays X and Y coordinates in the Info bar, and ensures that the Pixelmator folder now always appears in iCloud Drive. ($29.99 new from the Mac App Store, free update,
42.8 MB, release notes, 10.9.5+)

LaunchBar 6.1.6 -- Objective Development has released LaunchBar 6.1.6, a minor maintenance update for the keyboard-based launcher. The new version fixes a crash when using the Wikipedia search action, prevents bookmark indexing from creating search templates for URLs that contain an asterisk, fixes a cosmetic problem that prevented rounded corners from updating in some themes, and squashes a bug associated with adding OmniWeb or Opera bookmarks rule to the index. ($29 new with a 20 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 9.8 MB, release notes, 10.9+)